IMF advises Ghana to diversify export commodities

Division Chief of Research at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Thomas Helbling, has asked managers of Ghana’s economy to diversify the country’s exports to minimize shocks that come with declining prices of gold and cocoa.

Ghana has lost about $1.5 billion over the last few years because of declining prices of gold and cocoa on the international market.

According to the Bank of Ghana, earnings from gold exports dropped to $5 billion from 5.6 billion dollars for last year, while cocoa also declined to $1.6 billion from $2.2 billion in 2012.

However earnings from non-traditional exports went up by almost $600 million to reach $3.3 billion.

Speaking to Joy Business on the side lines of the IMF Spring Meeting in Washington D.C, Mr. Helbling said focusing more on other export commodities would ensure that Ghana benefits from the expected commodity boom in the coming months.

“In general the more diversified an economy is the more resilient it is, the more specialised it is, the more sensitive a country is to conditions in the market”, he explained.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MoTI) said last year it intends to increase the country’s non-traditional export from the current export value of $2.64 billion to $5.0 billion dollars by 2017.